Funeral Suits at Auntie Annie's
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It鈥檚 getting on for 12.15am on Friday night in Auntie Annie鈥檚. The eighteen people upstairs are evenly spaced in multiples of two or three and pressed tightly along the walls, whilst the colours, lights and sounds of Animal Disco fill the spaces where dancing bodies should ideally be.
Maybe it鈥檚 the post MTV/Belfast Music Week blues. Perhaps the city鈥檚 music lovers have (understandable) gig fatigue, broken bank balances and eardrums to mend. But it doesn鈥檛 quite explain why the turnout is so disappointingly low for the perky post-punk romantics Funeral Suits.
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听A further reason might be the 鈥榬egional thing鈥. As an Animal Disco organiser reflected, there鈥檚 often a difficulty in getting people out to check out emerging, yet interesting acts from other parts of the island. Spending years building a fan base in your home city can often count for nothing when you play 鈥榰p the road鈥 north or south of the border. Witness the rather good Ambience Affair of Dublin, playing just a few weeks prior in the same venue to seven-odd people and a lame dog called Cliff.
Anyway, as 12.20am approaches, Funeral Suits make their way from Annie鈥檚 backstage/ toilet door and hit the stage, unaffected by the small but spirited group that鈥檚 assembled. 2011 has been a busy one for the band. They鈥檝e toured extensively, added a guitarist to the mix and have a nice shiny Stephen Street-produced album to push. All the more pity that tonight鈥檚 turnout is less than stellar.
鈥淲e鈥檙e Funeral Suits and this is 鈥楽tars and Spaceships鈥欌, deadpans Mik McKeogh, before the band launch into an effective and affecting slice of driving psychedelic whimsy.
听As happens when you鈥檙e road-honed and battle-hardened, Funeral Suits have clearly toughened and tightened their sound in the past year. The Auntie Annie鈥檚 PA notwithstanding, it鈥檚 a close-wound and intense burst of sound that they deliver as a band, with McKeogh and Brian James alternating between guitars and keyboards with a seamless ease. With synth-stabs courtesy of Tubeway Army and those chiming, layered guitar parts, they tear into favourites like 鈥楥olour Fade鈥 and the always life-affirming 鈥楬ealthy鈥.
The fact is, even though they owe a self-confessed debt to the 鈥榖ig music鈥 of early U2 and Echo and the Bunnymen, Funeral Suits have enough layered clatter and formula-shuffling nous to make a small space for themselves amidst the crowded 鈥渂oy division鈥 market. Somewhere left of Abe Vigoda and a couple of drawers down from White Lies perhaps. The newer tracks also impress and suggest a slightly more pop-savvy post-album direction.
They flail and rock about the tiny stage, absolutely self-contained and utterly distracted by their racket. It seems to matter little that there鈥檚 18 and not 18,000 watching. To be fair, the small crowd is vocally enthusiastic, as the lads play on like their lives depended on it. It鈥檚 heroically akin to the Titanic House band playing on as the boat goes down. Especially when punters start to leave (it is near chucking-out time after all). An endearingly committed performance from a good band who perhaps picked the wrong week to play Belfast鈥
Joe Nawaz听听
Comment number 1.
At 3rd Jul 2012, umair ahmed wrote:Good Music , waiting to watch them play .
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